Lean Cuisine Sweet & Sour Chicken Review

When it comes to Lean Cuisine, the further we stray from their pasta line, the more disappointed we are by the quality of their food. The Sweet & Sour Chicken is nothing more than a bland attempt at creating an Asian-inspired dish.

This one smelled bad before we even stuck it into the microwave. Typically, even the worst food we try doesn’t smell bad until it’s done cooking. Oddly enough, this dish had less of a scent when it’s cooked than it does when it’s frozen, which is baffling. Until you taste it, that is, when you realize it doesn’t have much of a flavor either.

The centerpiece of this dish is the grilled chicken, which is now natural and raised without hormones, according to the package. It’s nice and juicy, but it’s not very flavorful.

The chicken comes on a bed of white rice, which has absolutely no flavor at all. The saving grace, then, should have been the sweet and sour sauce, but even that barely has a taste at all. This whole dish is a bit like eating a budget sweet and sour chicken dish while plugging your nose. The flavor is muted to the point where you can’t really tell if it’s there. And this dish is absolutely drenched in sauce, so we’re not really sure what went wrong.

There are a few bits of pineapple mixed in, and believe it or not, that’s the best part of this entire meal. They’re few and far between, but your taste buds will thank you every time you manage to find a bite with a pineapple chunk in it. At least it has a rich, sweet flavor.

Lean Cuisine’s Sweet & Sour Chicken is edible, but that’s not saying much. It’s puzzlingly bland, so while it’s not completely disgusting, it’s not very good either. For a much better Asian-inspired treat by Lean Cuisine, we recommend their Thai-Style Chicken Spring Rolls.

If you want to know more about the ingredients and nutrition of this dish, check out our package scans below.